Murphy's Law
by Sonic Serendipity
Summary: In which wee tiny Parker and Alec steal Nate's things from him and then steal Nate from Russians, which favor he responds to by bleeding all over their stuff. Eliot saves the day and loses his patience, and Sophie is too busy Getting Stuff Accomplished for the whole mess. /kidfic, hc bingo square 'blood loss'
1. Chapter 1

_I have noticed a definite bias in my Leverage fic and I just wanted to explain real quick: I have known many Hardisons (good-hearted good-looking geeky guys) and several Nates (genius-and-knows-it asshole-ish but fundamentally decent men), so I feel comfortable writing them even if they're way smarter than me. I have known no Parkers, but she's so unpredictable that I feel like I'm covered if I misstep, so I can relax. But I have pretty much no experience with someone like Sophie or Eliot. I love them, and I do write them when I can, but I am far far less confident in my ability to not screw them up._

_I may expand this universe later, I kinda like it. :D_

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In the fine Irish tradition of Murphy, everything that could go wrong had. Cover blown, earpiece shattered, wallet stolen. They'd locked him in a basement (which hadn't lasted long) and shot him in the leg (which could very well kill him), and his current hiding place was about two minutes from being his final resting place.

"Hey, come on!"

And, of course, he was endangering minors by his very presence. He really was a bastard. "Kid, I don't—"

"Shh," said the boy impatiently. "We can hide in here." He was tiny and…_plucky_, and had clearly been on the Earth for less than six years and on the streets for more than one. He was dirty in the preferred way of little boys, and smelled fairly ripe, and that as much as his bright eyes and gap-toothed grin pained Nate in a way that had nothing to do with the kid leaning against his injured limb.

"I don't think I'll fit," he said very softly, although he followed, crouching in a way that was agony as his free hand pressed down on the bullet wound.

"You'll fit," the girl said. She looked him over in a calculating way, taking in the injury and everything else with a steadiness that reminded him of himself as a boy, watching mobsters getting their fingers broken. "It's a good hiding place."

He believed her. They had only met because she had stolen his phone, and he'd only seen cleaner lifts when their team called in Apollo and the thief picked their pockets for fun. She was leading them through the warehouse with equal skill, as demonstrated by the thugs cursing in Russian somewhere far away, but it wouldn't be long before his makeshift bandage failed and he started leaving a trail again. Fortunately, they were almost on top of the hideout, as he found when his pint-sized guides stopped in front of a pile of containers that looked like any other pile of containers, until they set small shoulders to a box and shoved it to the side. They darted in and he followed, much less gracefully.

The interior was lived-in—clearly this was their only or at least primary living space. Light filtered in through thin gaps inbetween packaging, revealing a space more like a magpie's nest than a child's bedroom. As someone looking to hide it was great, as a man increasingly woozy with blood loss it was practically paradise. They helped him sit down; honestly, it would have been better for him to go it himself, but they wanted to help. The girl looked conflicted, before patting him awkwardly on the head. "It's ok. You're ok."

"That I am," he agreed.

She nodded once, sharply, and moved back to the 'entrance'. "I'll be back in a minute. Don't make sounds." Before he could more than open his mouth, she had exited, shoving the box back into place behind her. The boy hugged his arm, much more comfortably than his partner in crime had managed.

"She really will be back. Parker keeps promises."

"Ah. Parker?" He looked over his companion. "Sorry, buddy, I don't know your name."

The kid beamed at him, confident as the king of the playground in kindergarten. "I'm Alec."

"Nice to meet you, Alec." They shook hands. "Alec what? What's your past name?"

Alec shrugged carelessly. "Don't remember. Hey, what's your name? You said one name to those guys and a different name to the other guys." He looked a little excited. "You some kinda cop?"

Nate laughed, making himself as comfortable as he could. "No. No kinda cop. I'm a thief like you guys. My name is Nate Ford."

Alec's eyes widened. "That's a whole 'nother name. You got lots of secret identities, doncha?"

"Oh, yeah." He winced. "My current identity is 'man exsanguinating'. I don't suppose you have anything I could use as a bandage?"

"Bandaids? Bandaids we got!" he went to rummage in a pile of assorted supplies, and rather than correcting him Nate looked over the possibilities himself. No fortuitous fully-stocked medkit, but there was something that caught his eye, and he stretched to grab it.

"Hey, Alec, can I use this?" Alec looked, pausing with his fist full of bandaids.

"That? Ok, I guess." He crowded close again as Nate unscrewed the top of the flask and sniffed at it carefully. "It tastes awful, Parker says only grown-ups like it. We kept it 'cause she said it's good for fires."

Well. There was a wealth of information in that statement, most of it disturbing, and Nate reluctantly resisted taking a sip to ease his mind. Instead he shifted, starting to unwind his tie from around his leg. "That it is; it's also good for killing germs, so I'm gonna use it on my leg." Alec watched, apparently only a little disturbed by the injury, and Nate stopped right before pouring the liquor. "This is gonna hurt me, kiddo. So don't get scared, ok?" The kid gulped, but nodded.

Nate poured. It did, indeed, hurt like a bitch. He managed not to yell mostly by biting down on his lip, but he felt his vision white out as he swayed and almost passed out.

His senses gradually came back, what he calculated as minutes and felt as years later. Parker was back, hands full of something (was that…a wallet? Had she PICKED the Russian gangster? Damn, apparently kids didn't have to be _your_ kid to scare the crap out of you…) while Alec was patting ineffectually at his arm, dark face a little ashen under the grime. "Nate? Mr. Nate? You ok?"

"I'm—" his voice cracked and he cleared his throat, thinking longingly of the whiskey no longer in the flask. "I'm ok."

"You want to use the band aids now?"

That actually surprised a laugh out of him. "Well, that's a nice offer, but I'm afraid a bullet hole is a bit too much for a band aid." And, okay, yep, not just the pain of the alcohol; he was definitely starting to get into dangerous amounts of blood lost. He raked a hand through his hair, trying to focus. "Tell you what, though, if one of you will give me that handkerchief over there I might be able to use that." The kids had probably grabbed it because of the bright colors and silky material (real silk, at a glance) but it looked clean enough to serve. Alec gave it to him…after a brief mental battle where Parker seemed reluctant to give up her loot.

He folded the handkerchief and, with a breath to steady himself, pressed it hard against the wound on the top of his thigh. The entry wound on the back of his leg seemed to be bleeding less, which was just as well because his options for bandaging were limited. For a brief moment in which everything got very fuzzy he applied pressure, then fumbled to bind it down with his tie. His hands were shaking, and after a moment Parker's tiny fair ones joined them, holding the dressing in place as he finished off the knot. He looked up to thank her and was startled as something was shoved in his face.

"You got a band aid size one here," Alec explained, and bent with total focus to apply the kid version of cure-all to a small cut on the man's cheek. Nate tried to look at him, but even without the dizziness of anemia Alec was close enough that the attempt made him go cross-eyed. He looked instead at Parker, who had been a bit more unsure about the whole situation.

"Everything good with you?" He asked. She just looked at him for a moment, before a smile crept across her face. It was the first time he'd seen her smile, and it lit up her small face like a sunrise.

"Sure," she said, and claimed a band aid from the pile to wrap around one of his split knuckles.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Still totally unsure where this is going, but this bit kind of wrote itself. Be honest with me now; are y'all up for 2k words of nothing but kid versions of Parker and Hardison being consistently precocious and intermittently felonious?_

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Nate fell asleep while they were still putting band aids on his knuckles- -on ALL his knuckles. Alec had seen him punch that one guy but maybe he'd punched some other guys too. He was kind of hunched over on himself, breathing rough in his sleep, and the two kids looked at each other. "Maybe he should lie down?" Alec asked in his best soft voice. (Parker had taught him how to do a really good one)

"I guess," Parker said doubtfully. She looked the man over from a couple of directions, then shrugged and planted her hands against his shoulder to push. Nate tipped over slowly into the blankets, and it was funny enough that they both laughed some. It's really hard to laugh quietly, but they had practiced a lot; sometimes after Parker took stuff from someone's pocket, they hid nearby and watched as the person realized his wallet was gone-it was always really funny, and they always laughed with their hands over their mouths until they fell over and their bellies hurt.

Thinking about stealing reminded Alec that Parker had come back with loot, and he craned his neck to look where she had set them down. "Did you steal from those bad guys?" He frowned when he thought that, because stealing was funny and they needed stuff, but you had to be careful who you stole from. Not everyone was as cool about it as Nate, and some could be really really mean.

"Kind of," Parker said happily. Stealing stuff always made her happy; Alec liked what you could DO with the stuff, like play games on the phones or buy food with the money, but Parker just liked taking it, whether they needed it or not. "They were all looking so no one was in their car. There was only two phones and a wallet, and one of the phones was boring, but I brought you the cool one. I think it's our guy's."

"Awesome! Gimme!" She did straight away, because Parker didn't like giving away things that were hers but Alec was hers too, so giving stuff to him wasn't really like giving it away. It was a smart phone, and a pretty sweet one too, but Alec could tell right away that something was wrong with it because it felt funny. At first he thought maybe it was a fake phone-because Nate was like some kind of spy, even if he said he was just a thief, so maybe it was some kind of spy gear that only looked like a phone-but he quickly realized that all it was missing was its battery. He pried loose the door on the back, and held out his free hand for the bag he knew Parker was going to put in it. Parker figured things out even quicker than him sometimes.

"Do we have the right kind?" She hissed, and he rummaged through the bag of phone batteries before triumphantly pulling out the right one.

"Bingo!" He crowed, snapping the battery in place and turning on the phone. "We in business."

"Awesome," Parker said cooly. Parker was kinda like a spy too, sometimes.

The phone was a little weird; it was a fancy one, but set up very simple. Most guys who had big fancy phones had a zillion apps on them, all kinds of programs and stuff. Nate seemed to have just the ones that came with the phone. Even the background was boring; some kind of painting, one of the ones that didn't really look like anything, like even Alec could have painted it. He called up the contact list, which had only six entries, and saw that there weren't even names-just two letters for each one, 'A S', 'S D', like that. "I think Nate's a spy," he told Parker.

"Really?" She thought about that, and made a face. "Yeah, maybe." They looked at Nate, who was lying curled up so still that only Parker's hand on his shoulder, going up and down as he breathed, showed that he was still alive. "That's kinda cool. I never met a spy before."

"But you prob'ly _did_," said Alec, momentarily forgetting the phone. "I mean, their job is to be all secret and stuff. I bet we met lots of spies that we just didn't realize."

"I probably stole from a spy before," Parker said dreamily. "Hey, does that mean Nate is just a bad spy? 'Cause we caught him."

"Oh." Alec thought about that, looking the man in question over with sudden doubt. "Yeah. But, I mean, he got shot, right? That's a good excuse for getting caught." Parker shrugged, admitting that that was so.

Alec didn't want to try calling any of the numbers in the phone, so he instead found the menu for text messages; there was just one message, three words, and the kids looked at each other. "You're smarter," Parker said. "You can read."

"You're older!" said Alec, "and you're smart too!"

"Fine. We'll read it together."

They both bent over the phone, sounding out the first word. "Ahhh...rehhh...eee. Arey?" Parker frowned. "Is that this guy's name?"

"Huh? Oh! You were gone. This guy's name is Nate," Alec said proudly. He'd forgotten Nate's last name, but both he and Parker only had one name and they were fine.

"Really? So what's 'arey'?" He shrugged, and she sounded out the next one. "Yuh...ohh...uhh. Oh...wait. I know that one. 'You'."

"Right! And the last one is 'ok', with a question. You ok?"

"Ohhhhhh," Parker said. "The first one must be 'are'! 'Are you ok'. That does not look like 'are'. There's two extra letters."

"Spelling," Alec said sagely. "Craziness."

"So...his friend is looking for him? Should we answer?"

"They'll prob'ly think we stole his phone." Alec shook his head. "If his friends are spies too they could prob'ly shoot us with a missile or something."

"We did steal it," Parker pointed out. "Let's wake him up. Then he can tell them we're with him." She poked his shoulder, lightly at first, but more and more strongly. Nate didn't wake up, which was impressive-Parker usually woke Alec up, and she had a powerful poke. Alec joined her after a minute, but even with both of them pushing at him and calling his name as loud as they dared, he didn't open his eyes.

"He ain't dead, right?" asked Alec, worried.

"No, see? He's still breathing. I guess he's just really tired." Parker eyed him. "I'm tired too. We should sleep."

"Paaaaarker," Alec whined, "I hate sleepin' when it's day!"

"Well, we were awake all night so we have to sleep in the day," she said reasonably. "Besides, those bad guys can't look for us in the day because there's people working around here." She stood up, fists on hips, and surveyed their house; usually they slept curled up in the middle of the pile of blankets and stuff, but right now Nate was right smack in the middle, and Nate was waaaaaay bigger than them. "We can be next to him," she decided. "Just not by hands or feet. Head and back is better."

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Nate regained consciousness to a looming claustrophobic feeling. He slowly pried his eyes open, and saw little at first but a curiously filtered light; as he remembered where he was and what was happening, he blinked, feeling marginally more alert. The light was coming through cracks between containers, yes, but there was also a wispy gold curtain in front of his eyes. He recognized it as Parker's hair just as it moved back and her voice whispered above his head. "Are you awake?"

He tried to crane his neck to look at her, regretting it as dizziness washed over him again. He closed his eyes and swallowed harshly. "Um. Yeah. Kinda." With a near-silent rustle the shifted, and when he worked up the nerve to open his eyes again he saw that she had sat up from where she must have been sprawled on the floor near the crown of his head. She leaned over him, and he turned his head a little to the left (not risking lifting it off the ground yet) to meet her eyes. "How long was I out?"

"You've been asleep for hours," she said feelingly. "_Hours_. It was really boring."

"Sorry," he tried, then frowned as that number registered. "Wait, hours? The Russians-" he started to try and lift himself up, and she held him down by pressing her hands against his forehead. Which was completely embarrassing.

"Shh," she hissed. "You'll wake Alec."

"Sorry," he said again, this time with the genuine sentiment that came from someone who remembered the trials of getting a toddler to sleep. "But I'm concerned about those Russian, ah, bad guys. They haven't-"

"It's day," she interrupted. "There's people working in the day so they can't look until it's night again."

"Okay." he let his eyes drift closed again as he thought. "Okay..." Parker leaned over him closer, and her hair tickled at his cheek and neck. "Parker, do you have a phone I can use?"

"Oh, yeah." The hair disappeared for a moment then came back. He looked up blearily to find his own phone hovering in front of his eyes. "I got your phone from those guys' car. Some guy texted you to say 'are you okay'."

"Seriously?" He started to get up again, and this time she stopped him by literally leaning down and pressing her sharp little chin into his neck. "Hey, ow," he protested mildly. She moved to instead lay her cheek against his, looking at the phone as he held it before his blurry eyes.

"What are you saying?" she asked, as he hunted and pecked his way through the keys.

"I'm telling them about where I am and that the bad guys will be here at dark." Only moments after he pressed 'send' a reply popped up, and he squinted at it, for once feeling a little bitter at his hacker's habit of always using full sentences with proper grammar and punctuation. Too many characters...

"What's it say?" asked Parker, her voice echoing as though it came from an earbud, her cheekbone being right against his as it was.

"He says..." Nate drew the phone even closer to his face. "He says they've been tracking my phone since it turned on two hours ago. Eliot was on a plane as soon as I disappeared, and he'll be landing here in Chicago soon." Alec made a sleepy, contented noise as he shifted somewhere behind Nate's back, and Parker's head lifted away for a moment before returning to a resting place on his shoulder.

"So your friend's coming? What about the bad guys?"

Nate laughed quietly, and Parker made a small pleased sound as she pressed herself closer to his back. "Don't worry about them. Eliot can handle them."

"Okay," she said absently, still curled against him, and he grinned, the motion tugging against the band aid on his cheek. He remembered story time with Sam, when his son would slowly creep more and more onto Daddy's lap until he was crowded against his chest, enjoying the rumble of Nate's voice almost more than the story itself.

"Why don't you go back to sleep," he said softly. "My friend will call when he's outside." He started to relax again himself before a thought occurred to him. "Parker?"

"Hmm?" she said in a drowsy voice.

"Parker, if my friend calls and I'm unconscious...if you can't wake me up again, you should answer the phone, ok? You can tell him where we are then."

"Okay."

"Thanks." Still uneasy, but with no other options, and with the soporific effect of two kids putting out sleep-vibes, Nate let himself drop into unconsciousness once more.


	3. Chapter 3

"Wassit?"

Parker looked over at Alec, glad that he remembered to keep his sleepy voice quiet. "It's after work hours, so the normal people have left. Nate's friend is waiting for the bad guys to show up, and then he'll get rid of them and bring Nate out."

"Did you talk to him?" Alec scrubbed at his eyes, digging out one of their water bottles and drinking thirstily. "What's he like?"

"Nate texted with him," she said. She didn't say how Nate's eyes could barely focus on the phone and he asked her to type out 'okay' in response, or how impossible it had been to wake him after that. She didn't like thinking about it and didn't want to talk about it.

"Oh, cool. So when—" he stopped as there was a sudden loud crash somewhere in the warehouse.

"I guess they're fighting," she said, and scowled. Nate seemed sure that his friend could save them, but what if he was wrong? Then they would have to keep hiding, or maybe take Nate somewhere to keep him safe. Maybe...? Parker sighed. "I'm gonna go out and see what's happening."

"Okay!" Alec started to scramble for the door and she stopped him with a glare.

"Not you!" she hissed. "It's not safe."

"It's not safe for you too," he said. Parker glared harder: she knew she was sneakier than him, and he knew it, and he knew that she knew that he knew it. But he had his stubborn face on, the one that meant that he would do what he wanted no matter what she said. Parker rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said. "But you have to be _really _quiet." Alec pretended to zip his mouth closed, and after checking on Nate (he was still asleep, and looked worse than ever) they both left the hideout.

They had a lookout close by that you could see most things from, and they made their way there while the crashing and shouting kept on. Once they got there it took them only a minute to find where Nate's friend was—he wasn't sneaking around, and the bad guys weren't either.

"It's like a movie," Alec breathed. "Nate and them are _definitely _spies." Parker didn't reply. She guessed it was a good thing that Nate's friend could fight so well, even when there were so many more bad guys than him, but it was scary to watch. In just a few minutes, all the bad guys were down...some of them were moving a little but some of them looked dead. Nate's friend combed back his hair with his fingers (he had long hair, almost longer than Parker's) and looked around.

"Nate?" he called, and waited a minute, listening. His eyebrows drew down again, and he looked mean and angry. "Nate!" he shouted. "Dammit, Nate, where the hell are you! Nate?"

Alec started to move, mouth opening, and Parker clapped her hand down over his mouth and put her lips right by his ear. "Shh," she breathed, almost too quietly to hear. "It's not safe. Maybe he's not really Nate's friend."

"I think he's just mad 'cause he thinks Nate's playing a trick on him," he replied the same way. "He'll be okay when he knows Nate's just asleep."

"He's really mad. I don't like people who get really mad. It's not safe."

"You get mad," Alec pointed out. "When people try to take your stuff."

"We took his Nate," she replied.

"No, _those _guys took Nate," he said reasonably. "We just found him. He already punched all the guys that took Nate."

That was true. Parker sighed. "Fine. But you wait, okay? I'm gonna talk to him first." Alec nodded; he wasn't as careful as Parker, but he wasn't dumb either.

Parker moved forward very carefully, stopping when she was still out of reach, with a container between her and the long-haired guy. "Are you Nate's friend?"

He jerked, startled, and she almost ran away, but when his eyes landed on her they softened and his face became much less scary. Still not as nice as Nate's face but much better than before. "Yeah, I am. Do you know where he is?"

"Maybe," she said, raising her chin and looking at him squarely. "Can you prove it? That you're his friend."

"Well, now," he said. She was worried he would get upset at her for not taking him to Nate right away, but he looked almost pleased. "That's real smart of you, being careful like that, sweetheart." Usually when adults called her names like that she hated it, but the way he said it was different. Not sticky or fake or nasty.

That didn't mean he could trick her, though, and she asked again: "Can you prove it?"

"Well," he said, "You could ask Nate." He stopped to raise his eyebrows at her but she didn't move. "Oooooor not. How about this? All these guys-" he pointed at the bad guys piled up on the floor, and this close she could tell none of them were dead because they were breathing. She didn't know if she was glad of that or not. "These guys are definitely _not _Nate's friends, right? And clearly they're not my friends 'cause I beat 'em up."

"That makes sense!" Alec chirped, and Parker rolled her eyes as hard as she could.

"I _told _you to stay _back_," she said. "Why are you here!"

"I _am _back," he said. She looked at him; he was indeed about as far away from maybe-Nate's-friend as she was, and on top of a pile of boxes besides.

"Still," she said disgustedly. They might have argued, but maybe-Nate's-friend laughed and they both turned to look at him.

"Sorry," he said, and the laugh made his voice less dangerous-sounding. "So, what's the verdict? Can you take me to Nate? I assume he's in some kind of trouble, since he isn't out here and y'all are."

"Okay," said Alec. "What's your name?"

Oh. Parker wondered why she hadn't asked that first, because it would be much simpler to call him by his name than 'Nate's-maybe-friend'.

"Eliot Spencer," he said, and moved a little towards Alec so he could reach up and shake his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Alec said, shaking the hand happily. "I'm Alec. That's Parker. Are you Eliot or Spencer?"

"You can call me Eliot," he said, and held up his arms a little: Alec swung his legs over the side of the box and dropped lightly into Eliot's grip. "So, what kind of trouble is Nate in right now?"

"He won't wake up," Alec said as Eliot put him on the ground, and the man froze when he said it. "He got shot, in the leg," Alec added helpfully.

"What?" Eliot growled; he looked scary again, and Parker darted forward to pull Alec behind her. "Wait, I didn't..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them he looked okay again. "Sorry," he said in a medium-scary voice. "I'm not mad at you, I'm worried about my friend."

Parker didn't let Alec out from behind her, but she nodded. "We're worried too," she allowed. "Come on."

Eliot was shorter than Nate but he had a lot more muscles: Parker first thought that he might not fit through their 'door' but he managed it pretty well. He immediately shuffled forward on his knees and leaned over Nate, checking him over, patting his cheek lightly and calling his name. He was so careful, and his voice so quiet, that Parker finally decided that he was definitely Nate's friend. He was inspecting Nate's leg, where his tie held her now-bloody handkerchief onto the bullet hole, when he spoke up. "How long has he been unconcious?"

"Asleep?" Alec confirmed, and Eliot nodded. Parker shrugged.

"He woke up a little when you texted. He couldn't see or move a lot though and I had to text you for him."

"Well, thank you for that, sugar," he said to Parker. He reached up through his hair to touch his ear, and she saw that it had something skin-colored in it-like a bluetooth or those things deaf people wear. "Hello? Mac? Sophie? Any reception?" He wasn't looking at them, and Parker decided it was some kind of bluetooth. He pulled his hand away and sighed. "Not in this building." He hesitated, looking at all three of them; then he leaned over Nate again, putting two fingers somewhere on Nate's neck and two at his elbow, and pressed down. Nate gasped a deep breath, eyes shooting open, and looked around wildly. He struggled to sit up, and Eliot helped prop him up.

"What...when..."

"Pressure points," Eliot said mysteriously. "Won't last. Nate, we need to get you out. If you can help me get you out of this I can carry you to the van. I have some basic medical supplies to tide you over before I can get us to a safe house and treat you properly."

"Hey, mister," Alec said, grinning. "Are you a spy too?"

"Eliot's not a spy," Nate said, although his voice was so rough it was kind of hard to understand him. "Eliot's Batman."

Eliot rolled his eyes, but he looked at Nate like he loved him, and Parker wondered if Nate's last name was 'Spencer' too because they were kinda like brothers. Parker didn't like thinking about brothers, though, so instead she asked; "What about me and Alec? What do we do?"

"They come too," Nate said.

"Dammit, Nate..."

"They're mixed up in this," he insisted. "It's not safe to...stay here. They come too."

Eliot sighed, but then turned to look over them and their house, like it was a puzzle instead of a problem. "Alright. But let's get you out while you're still awake."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: regarding the hacker: the team clearly needs a hacker for most of their jobs. They could get by with not always having a dedicated thief (they were previously soloists and can do lots of things to some extent), and only occasionally bringing in another warm body for multi-person cons, but the hacker is pretty central. As far as hackers on the show go, the only non-Hardison one we've really seen is Chaos, and I can't see him joining a team of do-gooders (or Eliot not killing him). So I made one up—I imagined him as Hardison's crime mentor in the canon 'verse, like Archie Leach was for Parker. I was picturing him as being suspiciously similar to a character from another show...if you can figure out who I will give you...nothing really. Approbation._

_Note: edited for typos. My kingdom for a beta. _

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Eliot got Nate out of the hideout—which involved some uncomfortable positions and once or twice a hand in an undignified place—and he promptly passed out again. Eliot lowered him gently down and ducked his head back into the space to find the kids looking around uncertainly. He measured the space and its contents with his eyes again, worried for what he was about to ask them. "Better grab anything you need or really want, kids. Might not get back here again later."

"We got backpacks for what we need," the girl (Parker?) answered, "but what about our other stuff?"

Eliot wormed his whole body in again. He shifted through the pile of blankets in the center of the space, trying not to scare the kids by scowling when most of them turned out to be heavily streaked with Nate's blood. He pulled out one that was mostly clean, shoving the others to the side and spreading it out. "Pile the things you most want to take in the middle, and we'll tie it into a bundle," he said briskly, and went out to recover poor Nate. While carefully pulling the man into a fireman's carry, he heard the kids talking softly. "Is he coming back?" Alec asked, and Parker replied, "Yep. He'll have to." The boy laughed a little, which was suspicious, but Nate was on his shoulders now and the Russian's van was waiting to receive him.

The keyring he'd taken from one of the guys had only one key, which was fortunate because he didn't really have time to be trying every one in a bundle. Pulling out the key and depositing Nate in the back did tell him why the kid had laughed; little punks had lifted his wallet and phone, and he glared at Nate's unconscious form even as he gently moved him to the most comfortable position possible. "Trust you to find and suborn thieves to your cause even unconscious."

Getting the kids and their bundle of stuff situated was another problem. The statistics about kids not wearing seatbelts, combined with the small but real possibility of another faction of the group he'd taken down making a move, made him want to buckle them into the passenger seat; but then he was gonna be suspicious enough as it was, and two small ragged children crammed in the front seat wouldn't look too good.

The kids made the decision for him, clambering in the back and wedging themselves between their blanket-wrapped bundle and Nate. Parker maneuvered around to where she could view the back of the van as well as him in the front seat, and then both kids looked at him pointedly. "Let's go," said Alec, and Eliot rolled his eyes.

"Fine. But don't come cryin' to me if you fall on your damn heads when I turn this thing." Honestly, though, he remembered a childhood where seatbelts were about as uncommon as paved roads, and the kids were braced well enough. Hell with it; getting Nate to a safe house quick and treating him properly was more important, and he threw the van in gear.

The kids fell asleep almost immediately, which was just as well because his sub-vocal grumblings became more audible, and more profane, as time ticked by and he still hadn't found a good place to crash. He was on the verge of declaring the van itself to be home base when he finally found a motel disreputable enough not to ask questions yet clean enough to treat Nate safely. He had the option of two twins or one queen, and after a brief thought to the little guys he settled on the queen, figuring the kids could sleep on the floor or a chair if they were still tired.

Getting Nate out of the van and into the queen was a trouble he didn't want to repeat, and the kids watched with concern as he wrestled him through the door. They watched, at first, as he started to run an IV for Nate and examine him carefully, but when the needle and thread came out they sensibly found other things to do, exploring the motel room and arranging their backpacks. They were still out of the way and quiet as he finished up, and he tried to smile at them as he went back out to the van to tidy up and call Boston.

"Eliot? How is he?" Mac's voice was clear, with the slight echo of speakerphone. Their hacker was sharper and in better shape than some men half his age, but his hearing wasn't all it used to be, and Eliot pushed back the slight fatigue of a hasty flight, drive, and fight to answer with clear enunciation.

"Hey, man. He's okay; bullet wound to the thigh, lost a lot of blood, but no signs of serious infection and I've got him stitched up with a drip running. Sophie there?"

"Ah." He sounded sardonic, and there was a brief keyboard clatter. "The job itself was pretty much wrapped up when Nate went to run down the lead that became a trap, and she finished up with more efficiency than finesse. Then she called in Tara, and the two of them are running down whoever it was that sent our boy into the lion's den."

"Ah, hell. Should I be watching the news for explosions?"

Mac snorted. "Wouldn't surprise me, honestly. You need anything else?"

Eliot considered asking about the kids, but he wanted to get Nate's side of that first, and it wasn't like any of the team other than he and Nate were any good with kids anyway. He shrugged off the thought. "I'll let you know. Phone's on."

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Nate awoke pleasantly warm, with the tug of an IV in his left arm and the feeling of someone watching him. He peeled open his eyes and barely resisted a shout when he found his field of vision filled with a small face made huge with proximity. "Are you awake?" Parker asked quietly, and he carefully lifted the hand with the IV (she was sitting in the curve of the other arm) to push her back.

"Unfortunately," he said, pausing to cough; "unfortunately, yes."

"Nate, man, you are a sight for sore eyes." Eliot's voice came from his left, and he rolled his head in that direction and squinted. His hitter was rising from the crappy motel chair he has probably spent the night in, leaving Alec perched on the arm where the kid had apparently been showing him something on Nate's smartphone. "You've been out for almost ten hours. The kids bunked with you for part of it, helped get your temperature up a bit, but you're still in rough shape." He scowled furiously as he came closer, making Parker press a little tighter against Nate on the bed. He patted her leg. She'd realize soon enough that Eliot angry was really Eliot worried, half the time. (of course, the other half of the time he was just pissed off.)

"Well, I feel much better."

"That's the drugs," Eliot snarked. "Why the hell did you fail to mention that you'd been shot?"

Nate tried to shrug, thought better of it and just made a face. "Didn't seem important. You were coming fast as you could either way."

Eliot growled, shoving back his hair and glaring. "Hell it wasn't important! I was right outside, but I waited for the Russians to come back after shift end, like you said. I coulda been treating you a long time sooner!"

"It all worked out fine," Nate pointed out in the highly reasonable voice that inexplicably annoyed his whole team. "I'm not dead. These guys looked after me great." Eliot flailed slightly in rage.

"Dammit, Nate!"

Nate ignored him, smiling first at Parker then Alec. "Thanks, by the way. I owe you guys." Alec beamed, hopping down off the chair to come stand beside the bed, giving Eliot a respectful berth.

"Aww, it ain't nothing. You were totally cool about us stealing from you."

Eliot made another incoherent noise of frustration, gesturing to include Nate and his two hangers-on. "That's how you met them? They picked your pocket?"

"Very neatly too," he said. Eliot glared a little more, and Parker sat up and met his eyes squarely, although Nate could feel her small hands where they gripped his shirt.

"Nate was nice to us," she told him. "People aren't nice. We like him, so we saved him." Eliot's scowl faded, and his whole face softened in the essential kindness that had first assured Nate that he was more than just a retrieval expert with a history of wetwork.

"You saved him, huh?"

"They kind of did," Nate said, and coughed again. Eliot helped prop him up against the headboard and gave him water, under the wary and interested eyes of their small shadows. "Thanks, Eliot. What's the damage?"

"Well, you lost upwards of 30% of your blood. That's with a three-zero."

"Not good," Nate said drily.

"Well, yeah, Nate, I'd say so. All the attendant difficulties, including hypothermia, which was mostly staved off with your two space heaters here." Parker and Alec looked back and forth between them. "Yep, that's you," Eliot confirmed. "Body heat's the best low-tech fix there is. Then, apart from the anemia, you have an actual physical hole through your leg, now cleaned and stitched."

"I disinfected it," Nate told him. "Whiskey. Didn't even drink any."

"Awesome, you're incredible, I'll throw you a parade," he said with deep sarcasm, but his hand drifted down and squeezed his shoulder. "Aside from assorted minor cuts and bruises, the main damage is some nasty-looking electrical burns to your left ear. The hell happened?"

"I find it hard to believe that with the number of earpieces you've destroyed, you've never had one short out when someone tased you in the neck right under it."

"Haven't had that particular pleasure, nope."

"It's a very distinctive sensation," Nate said blandly.

They had almost forgotten Alec was pressed against the bed, but he piped up, "Your ear got hurt? Did it need a band aid?"

Nate laughed aloud, earning pleased looks from the kids and a suspicious one from Eliot. "Not that kind of hurt, bud. It's not too bad anyway." Parker pushed his hair back and peered into his ear. "Other one, Parker," he said with amusement, and she leaned over him to look in the injured one. Eliot met Nate's eyes over her back with a 'What the hell?' kind of look and shrug, but Nate just shrugged back.

"Speaking of earpieces," Eliot eventually segued, "Now that you're up we should call Mac."

"Yeah, ok. Should I prepare myself for Sophie?"

"Ah, well, apparently Sophie and Tara are off wreaking justice on the deserving."

"Well, f..." Nate glanced at the kids. "Damn."

"Yep." Eliot put the phone on speaker and dialed, snorting to himself as they all leaned over it in a motley bunch. Mac picked up on the first ring.

"Yeah. Everything alright?"

"Everything's fine, Mac," Nate said. "Just a bit frayed around the edges."

"Well, damn, kiddo. Don't step in it by halves, do ya?"

"Who's that?" asked Parker, not quietly, and Nate grabbed Eliot's wrist to pull the phone closer to her. Eliot rolled his eyes but consented to being manhandled with good grace.

"That's Mac, Parker. He's a friend."

"Hi, Mr. Mac," Alec said, far more loudly and closely than was necessary. "Are you a spy?"

"Uh, I have been accused of that in the past, though I always just considered myself a scientist. These days I'm pretty much just a hacker."

"Cool! Me too!"

"Mac's not 'just' a hacker," Nate broke in. "He's the best. Although it's absurd for him to call me kiddo when he's only ten years older than me."

"You're a kiddo to me, kiddo. Who're your friends?"

"The young man you just spoke to is Alec, and the young lady is Parker."

"Hey, guys." Mac's voice was kind but straightforward. "Nate, you need some kind of information on them?" The kids didn't like the sound of that, and Nate closed his good arm around Parker to keep her from inching away. Alec was blocked between Eliot and the bed, but the hitter tapped him lightly on the head and ruffled his hair reassuringly.

"Not as such. There is a, ah, distinct air of doing better where they are now than they were in the system. They're good kids. Smart. Good thieves, too." They both looked pleased all out of proportion to the compliment, Alec beaming, Parker's poker face transforming with simple happiness as she curled down and rested her chin against his sternum.

"Uh-huh," the hacker said drily. "Lemme guess—they followed me home, can I keep them?"

"Nooooo," said Nate. "Not rea...no."

"You are all ridiculous," Eliot informed them, and pulled away the phone. "Mac, we're gonna be here at least a day more while Nate rests up. We can talk about details then."

"One more thing," Nate called loudly. "Who's making the plans—Sophie or Tara?"

"I think they're trading off." Both men in the motel sighed heavily at that statement, and Mac cackled. "Yup. I'm braced for drama. You guys all take care, keep in touch."

Eliot said farewell without further ceremony and ended the call. He looked at the clock and then the three in the bed. "Imma go get some food, guys. Not takin' requests, you'll eat it and like it." He met Nate's eyes, looked briefly at the kids and then surreptitiously tugged at his sleeve. _Clothes_?

"Well, food is food." He nodded in return fractionally, surreptitiously holding three fingers up behind Parker's back. _Yes. Three sets_. "And if you happened to run across someplace to get a drink..."

"F...screw you, Nate," Eliot said politely, and was gone.

"I don't think Eliot's Batman," Alec said thoughtfully. "I think he's BA from the A-Team."


	5. Chapter 5

When Eliot left Nate told them they could watch tv, which made Alec happy but Parker kind of worried. The houses where they ignored you were almost as bad as the mean ones, and the ones that ignored Parker always left her alone to watch a lot of tv. She didn't want to annoy Nate but she needed to know if he was already tired of them, so she could take Alec and go. "I don't want to watch tv," she said firmly, and waited. He lowered the phone he was working with and raised his eyebrows at her. She waited for him to get angry, or to say something like "don't you back-talk me, young lady" but he just shrugged.

"Well, you don't have to watch tv, but there's not much else to do here. You could use my phone when I'm done, but that wouldn't be fair to Alec since there's only one phone." He waited for her to answer, and when she didn't he said, "Okay then," and went back to his phone. He didn't look even a little bit mad, which was weird. Parker almost wanted to say something else to test how much it would take for him to start being mean, but she decided not to risk it. Maybe some time when Alec wasn't there.

He only used his phone for a little while before putting it down on the little table by the bed. He shifted around, wincing a lot every time he moved the leg with the hole in it, until he was lying on his stomach facing the tv across from the foot of the bed, his head close to Alec's where the boy was sitting on the carpet. "What's good on?" he asked as Parker moved around to imitate his position beside him.

"Cartoons," said Alec grandly.

"Hey, Phineas and Ferb. I know that one. My..." he stopped speaking for a minute. "I hear that's a good one," he finally said softly. His voice had changed, and Parker looked sideways at his face, worried. He didn't look mad, though, he looked...like Parker felt when someone tried to take Bunny or Alec away. She didn't want him to look like that, because it was no good to feel like that, but she had no idea what to do, so she just watched the cartoon. Alec kept talking to him though—Alec could talk more than probably anyone else in the world—and though he didn't answer every question he started to look more normal again. Parker wriggled forward until she was almost falling off the bed and tipped down to kiss Alec's dark cheek. Alec was the best.

They watched that episode, then another one, and as they were looking through the channels for something else Eliot came back with his hands full of bags. He dumped them on the table and Parker and Alec went to investigate them. (Eliot was busy scolding Nate for lying in a way that was bad for his leg, as he pulled the tube out of his arm and helped him sit on the edge of the bed.) Most of the bags had boring stuff like clothes in them, but there was one with lots of cartons of food inside, the kind you got at Chinese restaurants. Parker liked those, because when people threw out the leftovers they usually just closed them in the carton and threw them out, so the leftovers were usually clean and ok to eat if there was nothing else.

"Just a sec, guys," Eliot said, gently moving them away from the table; then he picked it up, bags and all, and moved it over so Nate could reach it without getting out of the bed. It wasn't a big table but it was still pretty cool, and Parker could tell that Alec thought Eliot was even more awesome because he was so strong. It made Parker uneasy, but when Eliot pulled the chairs over to and smiled at her she decided that maybe he was okay even if he was really strong.

They all ate together, packed around the small table. The food was great, much better than the leftover version, hot and spicy and wonderful, and it was fun to be eating it as a group. They finished pretty quickly because they were all so hungry, and then Nate cleared his throat and pulled the bags without food to him. "Okay, guys, Eliot got you some fresh clothes. Why don't you pick out what you want to wear for the rest of today and go take baths?"

"New clothes?" asked Alec. "Mine are okay."

"Well, yeah, they're not bad, buddy," said Nate, "But you—and they—are a little bit smelly. Nothing wrong with that, I mean, I'm kinda whiffy myself right now, but if people see us with clean clothes and you guys with not so clean ones they'll be suspicious."

Alec was digging through his bag, and Parker looked through the one Nate gave her; they weren't bad, nothing too fancy or weird, just jeans, pajama bottoms, a pack of panties, and three colors of t-shirt. One of the shirts had a horse on it but the other two were okay. She didn't know why Eliot had bought them clothes, though. Was it a bribe?

"Hey, I owe you guys for taking care of Nate," Eliot told her. "The clothes are a gift; don't worry about it." Parker tried to remember if she had spoken out loud, but was pretty sure she hadn't. Maybe Eliot could read minds? She tucked the thought away, thinking that it made Alec's spy theory more likely.

"So!" Nate said. "Who wants to go first?" The two kids looked at each other. Neither of them much cared for baths, although Parker didn't mind being clean.

"I've got an idea," Eliot said, sounding annoyed. "How about you go first?" He was talking to Nate, whose eyes widened.

"Me?"

"Like you said, you ain't exactly a bouquet of roses yourself," Eliot told him. "I got a little folding stool so you can sit in the tub and clean with a washcloth, and there's some clothes here for you too." Nate's mouth opened and then closed, and Eliot folded his arms and looked at him from under his eyebrows. "You told me to get clothes for the kids and totally forgot that your own duds are riddled with holes and blood."

"I wouldn't say 'riddled', exactly," Nate said, but his eyes crinkled a little at the corners and he took the clothes Eliot gave him. "Okay. Bathtime for me first."

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Eliot had packed a day bag for himself, and after the other three were finished he indulged in a short shower and changed into them. When he emerged, scrubbing at his hair and wishing darkly for a drier, he found his companions sitting in a line against the headboard of the bed. Nate in the middle scrubbed and shaved looked much less dire, while the little guys flanked him like tiny mismatched bookends. In their new clothes, faces shining with scrubbing, they looked more like normal little kids than hoodrats. Nate was talking to them, maybe telling a story or explaining something, and he stopped for a minute to meet Eliot's eyes with a sardonic expression, still relaxed from the drugs. "Do we pass muster, mom?"

Eliot scowled at him, just for form's sake, and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you'll do." Parker was wedged under his arm and looking at them gave Eliot a pang of sympathy that was almost pain. Everything he had lost was his own fault, but Nate didn't deserve a bit of it and the kids, for all their pickpocketing ways, in no way deserved where they'd ended up either.

It was, in a word, unfair. And if Nate had taught Eliot anything it was that there was such a thing as fair and unfair.

The cozy scene was interrupted by a doorbell. Eliot's entire body went tense with readiness, and the kids stiffened up too; Nate, contrary bastard, looked pleased instead. "Oh, good, it's here."

"What's here?" Eliot asked.

"My order. I put it in for same-day delivery."

"Dammit, Nate," Eliot sighed, and went to open the door. There was indeed a delivery boy there, and Eliot did a quick check that he was what he appeared to be (stance, clothing, shoes) before sliding off the chain and accepting the order. The box was heavier than it looked, and he dropped it on the bed. "The hell is this?"

Nate nudged at the kids. "Why don't you guys open it?"

They scurried forwards and did, needing only a little help from Eliot's pocketknife on the tape, and in short order pulled out one normal books and an assortment of colorful kids' books. Eliot claimed the normal one and looked it over curiously. "Swiss Family Robinson?"

"Whether or not their caregivers read to them is the single greatest indicator of later academic success for children," Nate said disingenuously. "The others are Doctor Suess, perfect for a kid learning to read on their own. The pictures are fun and the nonsense words are great for practicing phonics."

"Learning to read," Eliot said. Pointedly. "Learning to read usually takes a while, Nate."

"Yes," said Nate. He had Eliot's very least favorite expression on, even worse than the "I have no plan" expression; the one that said "I have no plan but I confidently plan to have a plan". That expression led to brilliant last-minute saves, amazing innovation, and, usually, icepacks and stitches for Eliot. "It's a long way to Boston, and nobody likes a road trip with bored kids."

"Awesome," Eliot said, and resolved that no matter what, he would not be manipulated into being the one who had to explain to Sophie.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N And that's all, folks! I would like to write more in this AU—I really liked how all the dynamics came out—but I have no plans right at the moment. Any ideas for future stories? Please let me know, and let me know what you though of this fic! _

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Eliot would have been willing to leave as soon as Nate was stable, but Nate insisted that they couldn't depart until some kind of safety restraints were rigged up in the back of the van for the kids. Eliot agreed easily enough, and then made a pointed show of pulling out and setting up a third set of restraints after finishing the ones for the kids. His narrow-eyed stare said _you might not realize, you moron, but there's someone other than the kids who needs a seat belt. _

Nate got his point but rather than appearing sheepish, raised his eyebrows and smiled in a way that meant, _he who lives in a glass house shouldn't bitch about his boss disregarding personal safety_.

The kids were starting to look weirded out by the silent conversation, so with a final look (and slight smile—it always was fun to spar with someone who knew what he was doing) they left off and settled in to leaving.

Eliot grumbled about the late start, but Nate knew they wouldn't have made the trip in a day no matter what. They had to stop to eat, and kids need more bathroom breaks than adults, and Eliot needed to check Nate's injuries like the obsessive-compulsive mother hen he was. Nate read the whole way, a child to either side in their makeshift belts, both of them listening as raptly to Swiss Family Robinson as he himself had ever listened to his mother or big sister read to him. Eliot griped about the constant talking, too, but even the kids—learning from Nate's example—paid him no mind. Eliot found complaining comforting.

Reading aloud took a lot of his attention, especially with Parker and Alec's constant questions, but he had enough brainspace to try and figure out what was going to happen when they got back to headquarters. Dammit, back to _his apartment_! His team had truly taken over. Not even in his own mind did he believe it to be really his personal space any more.

He had no worries about Eliot: the hitter's loyalty was absolute, and he'd support whatever he decided about the kids to the hilt. Besides, he liked them...liked kids in general, for all he seemed to sometimes not trust himself around them. Their 'part-time' team members like Tara and Apollo would also not have a problem with them as long as they didn't interfere with the job.

Mac...was less certain. For all his laid-back affability, he had opinions as stubborn as Nate's, and his morals were the most rock-solid of them all. If he thought the kids would do best with them he would back them one hundred percent. If not? Nate would have to pray for a miracle if he wanted legal papers that wouldn't get him arrested for kidnapping at the first inspection.

That led him to the biggest potential problem; Sophie. Their grifter had no particular fondness for children, although she didn't actively dislike them either. At the end of the day, the problem was that it was extremely difficult to con kids, and Sophie conned as naturally as she breathed—and often as unconsciously. Like as not the kids would sense that she wasn't being honest and be standoffish, which would put Sophie on the wrong foot, which would make the kids think she didn't like them...et cetera ad nauseum. It could easily become a disaster.

"Nate? We're here."

Well, if it was going to be a disaster it was going to happen soon. With a resigned puff of air, Nate tucked the bookmark at their current page and helped the kids with their fastenings. "Come on, guys. This is my house."

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Parker stood beside the van and looked up at the building where Nate lived. She had their book under one arm and Alec's hand held tightly in hers; he had almost jumped down to grab Nate's hand, but Nate was using crutches to walk and didn't have hands available. Parker could understand why he made Alec feel safe—she also felt it, the comfort of having an adult around so nice and so big—but she had been protecting Alec for a long time now and just because they were three (well, four with Eliot too) instead of two right now, it didn't mean she could stop looking after him.

Eliot was watching as she grabbed Alec's hand and pulled him close, and he gave her a wink and a nod that said _good job._ It was almost as nice as when Nate told her she was very smart.

"You guys ready to meet our other friends?" Nate asked them. He was pale, and he leaned on the crutches hard, but he still smiled at them a little. "Don't worry, they won't bite."

"If they do, it'll be you they go after, anyway," Eliot said to Nate. "Are _you_ worried?"

"Not at all. I have a plan."

"Uh huh. Is that plan, by any chance, 'duck and cover'?"

"Why would they go after you?" Alec cut in. "Ain't they your friends?"

"No reason," Nate soothed. "They are my friends, they can just be a little...critical of my choices sometimes."

He didn't say anything, and he turned to go into the building, but Parker caught him _looking_ at her and Alec. Then Eliot _looked_ too, and she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that made her hold Alec and her book closer. They were worried that their friends wouldn't like Alec and her, that they would be upset at Nate for bringing them back. Nate liked them, and maybe Eliot did too, but that wouldn't be enough if the others didn't like them. There was a memory in Parker's mind, one with happiness and sadness all tied up together; there had been a house where someone liked her a lot, had taken care of her gladly instead of angrily or not at all. But the other people in the house never did like her, and what hurt Parker most of all was how they'd treated Norah _because_ she liked Parker. What if Nate's friends decided they didn't like him because they were mad about her and Alec?

Parker shivered, although it wasn't very cold, and hugged the book even tighter. The hard corners bit into her belly as Alec tugged her forwards, up the staircase behind the two slow-moving adults.

Nate's apartment was big and open, and Parker and Alec would have explored except that there was a man coming to meet them. Eliot helped Nate into a couch, and then he nodded to the new person. "Kids, this is Peter McKinley. Mac, Parker and Alec."

The man—Mac?—smiled at them. "Heya." He was about the same height as Nate, with hair as silver as the stolen bracelets in Parker's bag, and eyes as dark as Alec's. "You can call me Mac, kids. These guys been taking care of you ok?"

"Yeah!" Alec said with enthusiasm, and Parker was grateful to him even as her guts knotted up even more. Mac was the oldest, so he was probably in charge; he was maybe the one who would send them away if he thought Nate shouldn't take care of them. "They got clothes, even though we had to take baths, and some really good food, and Nate read to us, and he let me take apart his phone...hey, is that yours?" without pausing to take a breath, Alec craned his neck to look at the desk at the back wall, with its computer setup. "You're a hacker, right? What do you do?"

"You wanna come take a look?"

Alec ripped his hand out of hers and scampered over to the computer, Mac walking slowly behind him. Parker wavered, almost following him and then instead looking towards Nate. He was wincing as Eliot inspected his burned ear, and Eliot looked up and smiled at her. "Go on, darlin'. I gotta check that Nate's injuries are all doing okay, so you might as well do something interesting while you wait." She looked at Nate helplessly, and he smiled at her too, his wide mouth just curling up at the corners.

"Go ahead. I'll be right here."

She went, reluctantly, and stood behind Alec. The old guy was explaining everything to Alec, and Parker understood a lot of it but not every bit. She listened without speaking up until Mac started showing them the little console to the side of the desk.

"Now, this here is my identity station. When we need some kind of ID papers, I can design, print, and weather them here."

"You make ID stuff?" Parker asked. "Like driver licenses?"

"Yup, just like. And also like..." he pulled out a yellow envelope, and slid out two fancy sheets of paper. "Just like birth certificates. Everybody gets a birth certificate when they're born, which proves who they are and who their parents are. These are for you." The two kids grabbed at them and he held them back warningly. "Ah, ah! Carefully. These aren't easy to make."

Parker took hers as carefully as she took wallets out of pockets, examining the whole sheet. She saw her name, r, with another name after it. Mac tapped another line of words, one she couldn't read. "It's got a birthday on here. We can change it if we have to, but for simplicity's sake you are 6 years old, Parker; and Alec, you're 5."

"Can't I be 6 too?" Alec said sadly, and Mac laughed and ruffled his hair.

"Sorry, kid."

"Hey, guys, can I see?" Nate called as Eliot finished checking him out and went to the kitchen area. Parker brought hers over, holding it up for his approval. "Hey, not bad. Parker...Jennings?" He looked at Alec's too. "Alexander Eckert. Where'd you get the surnames, Mac?"

"Eckert was one of the designers of ENIAC, and Jennings one of the programmers." Nate shrugged, looking confused, and Mac shrugged back. "Early computer science figures, basically."

"Ahhhhh," Nate said, and handed the certificates back to Alec and Parker. "Thanks for making these. Why'd you go to the trouble? You couldn't have even known we'd need them."

"Yeah, sure," said Mac drily. "Like I can't recognize a 'they followed me home, can I keep 'em' tone from you, kiddo. Give me some credit."

"Don't call me kiddo," Nate muttered, but he didn't look really upset.

Parker had just stuck her ID paper into her book when someone came in the door suddenly. She thought about taking Alec and hiding, just in case, but she didn't know the apartment well yet and who knew what hiding places were safe? Instead she just climbed up on the arm of the couch, close to Nate. The person who had come in was a tall woman with blonde hair like Parker's and a really short skirt. She stopped just inside the door, seeing Parker and Alec, and raised her eyebrows at Nate before walking towards Eliot in the kitchen. "I take it there's another long story in the making?"

"You have no idea," Eliot growled, but he didn't even look up from his cooking so Parker guessed he wasn't worried about the woman.

"Speaking of long stories," Nate said, "what have you been up to? And where's Sophie?" The blonde woman smiled, but it wasn't as nice as Nate's smile or even Eliot's.

"Ohh. Well. A long story, but not really anything surprising or out of the ordinary." She came closer to the couch, and Parker smelled a whiff of something like smoke. She pressed closer to Nate and held her book protectively close. The woman looked down at her with sharp eyes that saw everything, and Parker didn't like her but she wasn't really scared of her either. "You, on the other hand, Nate..."

"Tara," Nate said, a warning in his voice.

"Hey, no complaining here. I'm part-time, remember? What you do off the job is your own business, as far as I'm concerned. Now, whether Sophie will say the same, God knows." Her eyebrows scrunched down and she turned to look at Mac. "What do the rest of you think about this, anyway?"

"Haven't had time to decide," Mac was saying, but Parker didn't really hear him. They were all talking over her head, talking about whether it was good for her and Alec to be there or not, and the three of them seemed to think it was weird and maybe bad, and apparently there was a Sophie who wouldn't like it, and suddenly the book in her arms Bunny in her backpack and Alec nearby and Nate's arm pressed against hers wasn't nearly enough to make her feel safe.

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_iii iii iii_

_iii iii_

Tara and Mac were talking, Nate waiting to see which way the wind blew before he contributed anything, when Parker suddenly and without warning burst into tears. She was holding the hardcover book so tightly the corners had to hurt, and for a lack of something better to do to help Nate gently tugged it loose. She made a sound of distress as it pulled away, looking up at him with huge miserable eyes, and burst into even louder sobs. Helplessly Nate slid his arm around her and patted her shoulder, and she turned into his side and clutched at him in a way that was agony on his bruises. He looked around, hopelessly confused, to find all the adults staring, looking equally bewildered. Alec was watching Parker, and his eyes (_oh God help me_) were starting to well up too.

"Was it something I said?" Tara asked, and flinched as Alec burst into tears too, plunking down onto the floor at Nate's feet.

"Probably not," Nate said, patting Parker's side with one hand and Alec's head with the other. "They, ah...people without kids freak out at stuff like this but the truth is that kids cry all the time." He winced. "Lots of reasons when you're a kid. You're hurt, or frustrated, or tired, or angry..."

"Or hungry," Eliot said pointedly, turning back to his kitchen.

"Well, yeah." Alec gave another hiccupping sob and started to crawl into Nate's lap, which wouldn't have been a problem if Nate wasn't currently suffering from a bullet wound. "Ah," he said, a little desperately, trying to keep Alec off the injury without pushing him coldly away: "A little help? Guys?"

Tara raised her eyebrows and hands, backing away. "Don't look at me. I _make_ people cry, I don't stop them from crying."

"I'm cooking," said Eliot gruffly.

"They don't know me," Mac said, although to his credit he seemed a bit more sympathetic than the other two. "Not like cuddles from a stranger could do much good."

"Well..." Nate looked heavenward, wracking his brain for a solution. "Well. Alec's only crying because Parker's crying, so distraction is our best bet." He bent a little, putting his mouth right at Alec's ear. "Hey, buddy? Alec? Do you like giant robots?" Alec hiccupped again, looking up. "Thought so. You look like a robot kinda guy. Well, we don't have any here...not yet, anyway...but you see that giant wall of smart screens?" Alec turned to follow his finger, scrubbing a hand across his eyes as he looked at the screens. "Cool, huh? I bet Mac would be happy to show you how to make them work."

Make game Nate a bit of an evil eye, but stretched out his hand and smiled readily at Alec. "Sure, bud, no problem. You wanna come help me?" Alec sniffed, and smiled, and nodded as he slid of Nate's lap (ow ow ow) to join the hacker.

"One down, one to go," he mumbled, and adjusted his grip on Parker, gently stroking her tiny trembling back.

"Well, good luck with that," Tara said—sardonically, but not without sympathy. He gave her a brief ironic salute.

"You sure you don't wanna stay for dinner?" Eliot asked her. "It's kid-friendly."

"No, thanks, I'll pass."

Nate sighed, slouching down further into the sofa as Tara exited the apartment. Alec was quite happily absorbed in the tech toys now, whereas Parker showed no signs of stopping any time soon. He eyeballed his crutches, propped against the coffee table, then the distance to the dining table. With a resigned chuckle, he slowly stood, pulling Parker up with him and propping her on his hip to carry her. She adjusted her hands up around his neck but never unburied her face from his shoulder as she cried quietly but passionately. "Poor kid," he said softly, stroking her wet cheek with one finger. "You've had a rough week too, huh?"

"You better not be walkin' on that leg without crutches," Eliot warned, and looked up from his efforts to see Nate not only walking, but carrying Parker. "Dammit, Nate!"

"Sorry," he said, and sank into the straight-backed chair with a wince. "What's for dinner?"

"See if I give you any," Eliot grouched, which was the emptiest of empty threats. Nate was about to say so, when the door opened to Sophie's cultured voice.

"Nate, I met Tara going out, and she said...oh. Hello."

Nate looked around, taking in little Alec energetically talking with Mac, Eliot up to his elbows in cookery, and Parker curled in his arms and still weeping sorrowfully. "Um." He smiled at Sophie, felt it falter under those eyes that saw everything and knew him better than almost anyone. "Uh...I can explain?"


End file.
